and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left
a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
His heartbeat pounds in his ears. There’s nothing easy about this, nothing simple. Uncertainty dries his throat the second their eyes meet. Part of him didn’t expect her to stay, but a shadow of a grin twitches the corners of his mouth in obvious relief to see her here, standing in front of him with her unruly mane. It takes everything in him to not pull her close or to press a tender kiss to the curve of her jaw.
A flinch of his shoulder is the only indication of his inward battle. It could be, perhaps, mistaken for a fly removal.
But she knows him too well to think that.
Despite everything, butterflies rise in the pit of his stomach instead of fire, but they fall when she asks about his new family. Impassively, he answers, ”Oceane is fine, as is Alcinder,” he doesn’t reiterate her term of a family. Although the diplomat has creeped higher into his regards, there is still a great hesitance. His heart isn’t in it, and isn’t that what’s supposed to guide that decision?
”And you? How are you and our children?” He almost says family now – because that’s what they were – but the conversation rides along a precarious edge that he fears tumbling from with such sensitive reminders and sentiments. Alas, there is nowhere else for their conversation to go except into what happened. They’ve run from it for a year now, if not longer, but it has caught up especially with his manic side suppressed, finally. Her comment went unanswered at first, but not at all ignored. It is the fulcrum at the base of his thoughts as they teeter back and forth. How does he trespass into this unchartered territory? How does he, for the first time, humble himself and admit all that he has done wrong?
They both know he isn’t eloquent; he is brash, blunt, impulsive. Volatile.
Swallowing past the lump in his throat, he dives in by forcing his fears – since when has he been afraid? – aside. ”You told me to never to this, but listen,” perhaps not the best start by ordering a command, but his voice is far too gentle to indicate aggression or anger, or even dominance. ”I’m sorry for everything, but for mostly being an idiot when you’ve only been perfect.” Or should he say had? He told her then that he didn’t want to give up, and she claimed she wasn’t either, but he doesn’t know what has changed.
It would be expected, maybe even easier, for him to ask about her own new family, but he eludes his norm and skirts his usual, self-sabotaging trap. He pushes the man’s scent to the back of his mind; it isn’t constructive right now.
There’s so much more he wants to say, truths that exist deep within him, but he pauses in his attempt to quietly read her first while mustering the strength to continue.
A flinch of his shoulder is the only indication of his inward battle. It could be, perhaps, mistaken for a fly removal.
But she knows him too well to think that.
Despite everything, butterflies rise in the pit of his stomach instead of fire, but they fall when she asks about his new family. Impassively, he answers, ”Oceane is fine, as is Alcinder,” he doesn’t reiterate her term of a family. Although the diplomat has creeped higher into his regards, there is still a great hesitance. His heart isn’t in it, and isn’t that what’s supposed to guide that decision?
”And you? How are you and our children?” He almost says family now – because that’s what they were – but the conversation rides along a precarious edge that he fears tumbling from with such sensitive reminders and sentiments. Alas, there is nowhere else for their conversation to go except into what happened. They’ve run from it for a year now, if not longer, but it has caught up especially with his manic side suppressed, finally. Her comment went unanswered at first, but not at all ignored. It is the fulcrum at the base of his thoughts as they teeter back and forth. How does he trespass into this unchartered territory? How does he, for the first time, humble himself and admit all that he has done wrong?
They both know he isn’t eloquent; he is brash, blunt, impulsive. Volatile.
Swallowing past the lump in his throat, he dives in by forcing his fears – since when has he been afraid? – aside. ”You told me to never to this, but listen,” perhaps not the best start by ordering a command, but his voice is far too gentle to indicate aggression or anger, or even dominance. ”I’m sorry for everything, but for mostly being an idiot when you’ve only been perfect.” Or should he say had? He told her then that he didn’t want to give up, and she claimed she wasn’t either, but he doesn’t know what has changed.
It would be expected, maybe even easier, for him to ask about her own new family, but he eludes his norm and skirts his usual, self-sabotaging trap. He pushes the man’s scent to the back of his mind; it isn’t constructive right now.
There’s so much more he wants to say, truths that exist deep within him, but he pauses in his attempt to quietly read her first while mustering the strength to continue.
castile
@[sochi]